Windows XP Task Manager Assistance

General Questions
#1

I’ve been having a strange problem when trying to use Windows Task Mgr. It’s kinda hard to describe but here goes: When I hit cntrl+alt+delete, the Task Mgr window will come up, but only the “applications” portion shows. Also, the title bar is missing. The only way I can close the application is to click on the icon on the task bar.

I’m wondering if this is some kind of spyware or virus trick, but I’ve run AdAware and SpyBot but it is still happening. I wouldn’t really care that much about it, but my computer also from time to time will randomly flip to a blue screen and reboot with no warning. Could the 2 be connected?

#2

It sounds possible that it’s virus/malware causing this problem - but all such situations I’ve seen before just stop Taskman loading full stop.

As for the blue screen, assuming you’re on XP, right click My Computer, choose Properties, Advanced, Startup and Recovery Settings, and deselect “automatically restart”. Next time you get a blue screen, it’ll stay, so you can write down the error codes. Put them into Google, and see if anything helpful emerges.

#3

Thanks so much GorillaMan, that’s a good place to start!!

#4

The reason your Task Manager looks like it does, is most likely because you or somebody else double clicked it. If you double click the Task Manager (in “neutral space”) it will get the appearance you describe. Pull out the Task Manager, and double click on it’s frame, and it will get back to normal.

The Blue Screen thing is most likely a virus of some sort. I could be a ill written driver or something like that too, but its naturally impossible to say for sure without more information.

#5

Cool! I never knew you could do that!

#6

Nor did I …how strange! why on earth is that facility there?!

#7

Wow, never knew that either. Sure enough works like a charm! That’s a strange option to have…

At least that problem’s solved…

:slight_smile:

#8

I never knew that would happen in Task Manager either, but I guess it is for resizing the window. MS Tiny Footprint

#9

It’s so you can leave it at the corner of your desktop and watch your CPU usage. I used to do this at work while running data crunching code (usually SAS or R, for those of you into that sort of thing). At a quick glance, when the CPU dropped down to 0% or 1% or 2%, I knew the code was finished or terminated.

I now use the Windows port of GKrellM. You can watch your CPU, RAM, SWAP, Procs, the current time, weather, new email messages, uptime, etho activity, etc… Check it out. I can almost pretend I’m using Linux at work.